in tears. She has not
seen you for a month. Now that is really too bad; you leave my poor
Adeline without a sou. Your daughter Hortense almost died of it when
she was told that it is thanks to your brother that we had any dinner at
all. There was not even bread in your house this day.

"Adeline is heroically resolved to keep her sufferings to herself. She
said to me, 'I will do as you have done!' The speech went to my heart;
and after dinner, as I thought of what my cousin had been in 1811,
and of what she is in 1841--thirty years after--I had a violent
indigestion.--I fancied I should get over it; but when I got home, I
thought I was dying--"

"You see, Valerie, to what my adoration of you has brought me! To
crime--domestic crime!"

"Oh! I was wise never to marry!" cried Lisbeth, with savage joy. "You
are a kind, good man; Adeline is a perfect angel;--and this is the
reward of her blind devotion."

"An elderly angel!" said Madame Marneffe softly, as she looked half
tenderly, half mockingly, at her Hector, who was gazing at her as an
examining judge gazes at the accused.

"My poor wife!" said Hulot. "For more than nine months I have given her
no money, though I find it for you, Valerie; but at what a cost! No
one else will ever love you so, and what torments you inflict on me in
return!"

"Torments?" she echoed. "Then what do you call happiness?"

"I do not yet know on what terms you have been with this so-called
cousin whom you never mentioned to me," said the Baron, paying no heed
to Valerie's interjection. "But when he came in I felt as if a penknife
had been stuck into my heart. Blinded I may be, but I am not blind. I
could read his eyes, and yours. In short, from under that ape's eyelids
there flashed sparks that he flung at you--and your eyes!--Oh! you have
never looked at me so, never! As to this mystery, Valerie, it shall all
be cleared up. You are the only woman who ever made me know the meaning
of jealousy, so you need not be surprised by what I say.--But another
mystery which has rent its cloud, and it seems to me infamous----"

"Go on, go on," said Valerie.

"It is that Crevel, that square lump of flesh and stupidity, is in love
with you, and that you accept his attentions with so good a grace that
the idiot flaunts his passion before everybody."

"Only three! Can you discover no more?" asked Madame Marneffe.

"There may be more!" retorted the Baron.

"If Monsieur Crevel is in love with me, he